When we talk about “medium” in art we are referring to the materials and processes we use to create the work.
It’s important to select the appropriate medium for your work. It’s probably a bad analogy, but when the medium and the message are in conflict or don’t work well together, it’s kind of like going to a wedding dressed in your swimming attire. It just doesn’t fit.
Maybe that’s part of your narrative, and if it is, ignore this post. I’m addressing someone that’s putting together a story and that wants the visuals to support the narrative.
There are a lot of questions to ask when you start working on a project. Maybe the project is something that you’ve been thinking about for a long. Or maybe it’s something new. Either way, you need to find the medium that best suits the work.
For the majority of my writings here, I’m referring to the use of photography for making art. Not always, but most of the time. I’m going to use photography in this post so I can easily address the question about the medium affecting the work.
If you’ve started a project, or you’re thinking about one, how do you lay it out? Or, how do you organize your thoughts about it? What process do you go through? And when does the medium come to mind? How important of a role does it play in the work?
When I talk about the medium, I’m referring to format, type of film, optics, process, or processes, paper, presentation, etc. To me, that’s all very, very important. Since I work in 19th-century photographic processes, I want my narrative to be supported by the medium. I can’t stress how important this is to me. I want it to feel “right” and natural. My objective isn’t to confuse the viewer, or play tricks on them, but to engage them. It’s almost like having a dialogue. In order to do that, we need to speak the same language and have the concepts and ideas make sense. The medium is key here. For my project, “In the Shadow of Sun Mountain,” I’ve selected the most period-appropriate processes I can. My story takes place between 1850 - 1880. This is when the colonizers removed the Ute/Tabeguache from Colorado. Specifically removed them from where I live now.
For the past year, I’ve worked with wet and dry collodion negatives. Just recently, I started back making paper negatives (Calotypes) too. I’ve experimented with some very obscure negative-making processes in that time as well. I’ve made Platinum Palladium prints, Kallitypes, both modern and vintage, and Rawlins Oil prints.
These processes fall within the time period I’m referencing. I’m using the Whole Plate format. It was popular during this period as well. And for optics, my glass ranges from 1858 - 1877. Everything fits. I want the images to appear as they would have during this time.
The next thing I’m addressing is the aesthetic. I want the images to create a feeling of memory. A feeling of the past, like a half-remembered dream, if you will. It’s important for me to address both the tragedy of what happened to the Tabeguache as well as show the beauty of their land, plants and symbolic objects through these images.
The medium carries a lot of weight in art. How and why it was made is central to the story being told. Think about how you address the impact of the medium. If it’s an afterthought, I would reconsider the question.